Cholangiocarcinoma

At the 10th Annual Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Conference, Rachna Shroff, MD, MS, Chief, Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, and Director, Clinical Trials Office, University of Arizona Cancer Center, Tucson, and Madhulika Eluri, MD, Hematology/Oncology Fellow, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, debated whether chemotherapy remains the backbone for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) treatment or if it is time to move away from this therapeutic strategy.

First-line standard of care for patients with advanced cholangiocarcinoma has evolved from a chemotherapy-only regimen with gemcitabine/cisplatin to include the immune checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab based on results from TOPAZ-1 showing that the addition of durvalumab improved progression-free survival and overall survival compared with GemCis alone.

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), a rare and aggressive form of cancer, has seen a steady increase in incidence in the United States, with a predominant increase in intrahepatic CCA, from 2001 to 2017, according to a recent epidemiological study.

At the 4th Annual Cholangiocarcinoma Summit, held on October 13-15, 2022, in Aurora, CO, experts in the field of gastroenterology, interventional radiology, nursing, and surgery discussed the importance of using a multidisciplinary approach to supportive care and the management of complications in patients with biliary tract cancers (BTCs).

Patients with advanced biliary tract cancers (BTCs) have a poor prognosis despite systemic chemotherapy.

The global, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 TOPAZ-1 clinical trial evaluated the first-line chemoimmunotherapy regimen of the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) plus gemcitabine and cisplatin in patients with advanced biliary tract cancer.

The subtypes of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), including intrahepatic CCA and extrahepatic CCA, have various underlying tumor microenvironments, pathobiology, epidemiologic features, and risk factors; however, the genetic underpinnings of the CCA subtypes have not been previously defined.

The International Cholangiocarcinoma Research Network (ICRN) is a program initiated by the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation (CCF).

Key topics related to intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) were presented at the 2021 Society of Interventional Oncology (SIO) and the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) meetings and were discussed during the CCA Summit. Bruno C. Odisio, MD, FSIR, Interventional Radiologist and Co-Director of Research, Department of Interventional Radiology, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, reviewed the significance of these findings.

Personalized medicine has expanded the treatment options for patients with cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). At the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation (CCF), Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, MBA, Professor of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, discussed recent developments in personalized therapies, highlighting genomic alterations that are informing the new therapies for patients with CCA.